


The Best Ways to Shut Up Tony Stark

by circ_bamboo



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Mud, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2013-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-07 11:20:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony, Steve, a college AU, and a mud pit. And then cleanup. Dirty, dirty cleanup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Ways to Shut Up Tony Stark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feelslikefire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelslikefire/gifts).



> Written for feelslikefire upon the occasion of her birthday, and betaed by danisnotasynonymforshitty (tumblr) and adorable_eggplant. Thanks so much to those two, without whom a couple of hilarious typos may have been perpetuated upon the world, and so many more commas would have run free.

A knock came at Steve's dorm-room door, and without even thinking about it, he knew who it was. Only one person knocked in the Fibonacci sequence and didn't stop before he hit thirteen. He sighed, stood, and opened the door. "Hi, Tony."

"Steeeeeeeeeeve," Tony said, leaning against the doorframe. "Whatcha doin'?"

Steve looked back at his desk and rolled his eyes. "Homework."

"But it's Thursday."

"And I have class on Friday."

It was Tony's turn to roll his eyes. "No one goes to class on Fridays."

"I do," Steve said. For one thing, he actually liked going to class. For another, he was an RA, and was expected to provide a good example for his residents. Plus, he was a senior, and he really didn't want to screw up his grades for grad school this late in the game.

Tony was in grad school, just about to finish a Ph.D, although he was twenty-one, like Steve. When Steve had asked him how that worked out, he'd waved one hand and said, "High school was boring. I got out of there as fast as I could." He didn't even go to Waverly College; he went to MIT, some twenty miles away in Boston itself. Steve had run into him at the coffee shop near Waverly, where Tony'd requested the use of the other electrical outlet Steve had been sitting near. When asked what he was doing all the way out in the suburbs, Tony'd explained that the students on campus were way hotter at Waverly than any of the schools in town.

Later Steve had figured out that Tony was just trying to visit all the Cafe Beaner franchises in the area, but now he was stuck with the guy, who was saying, "But it's Festival Weekend. Half the teachers aren't even having classes tomorrow. The picnic is supposed to start in, like, an hour if it isn't rained out, and there's the chalk-drawing contest tomorrow--you're a shoo-in to win, but it's probably going to take you hours, and--"

"My teachers are having class tomorrow," Steve said, interrupting. He was starting to regret having invited Tony to Festival Weekend last year. "Besides, it's raining."

"Is it?" Tony said and looked past Steve to the window. "You know, it wasn't raining when I left my car." How he always managed to get into Steve's dorm, which was supposedly locked against non-residents, was a mystery, but probably not that much of one considering that his doctorate would be in computer and mechanical engineering.

Well, more likely he just followed someone else in. But Steve digressed. 

"Damn, that's really coming down," Tony said a moment later with a whistle. "Well. This is going to be a fine picnic."

Steve shrugged. "Well, it'll give me time to finish studying for my physics test."

Tony gave an exaggerated sigh. "Physics what? No one in the entire school will be giving a test tomorrow." 

It was true: Festival Weekend had events--concerts, lectures, exhibits, dramatic performances--that spanned most of the day on Friday, as well as Saturday and Sunday, and more than half the campus was involved. Really, only Steve's psych professor had refused to cancel class, and as Steve only had a handful of paintings in the art exhibit, nothing live, he didn't have an excuse to skip. "No, it's not until next Tuesday, but I'm busy on Monday evening with RA stuff so I thought I'd get a head start today since I already finished my psych homework. And it's Topics in 20th Century Physics."

Tony scoffed. "Physics for Poets, you mean."

"It looked better than Rocks for Jocks," Steve shot back. "There's still math, just no lab."

"Ugh, it's so easy. Look." Tony grabbed the whiteboard marker off of Steve's door, pushed his way into his room, a moderate-sized single as befit his RA status, and started scribbling equations on the mirror that covered the entirety of Steve's closet door. 

"Oh, my God, Tony, is that even going to come off?"

"Yeah, yeah. Comes right off. If it sticks around, just find some of that spray stuff. I could have written these in lipstick but I figured you didn't have any of that floating around. Or do you?" Tony gave him a sly look out of the corner of his eye.

"No, I left mine at home," Steve said, and the fact that he was sort of telling the truth--he'd been in a high school theater production and had had to buy some for that, but he didn't know what happened to it after the show--made it easier to keep a straight face.

"Mmf," Tony said, still scrawling symbols on the mirror, his handwriting just barely legible. He was squatting now, having started as high up as he could reach (not that high; Steve towered over him by six inches or more) and had filled about five feet of space. "I'm guessing it was bubblegum pink anyway, which wouldn't show up very well on the mirror. You need a good, dark red to write on a mirror properly."

It had, actually, been pretty much bubblegum pink--a shade or two darker than his natural lip color--so Steve didn't comment on that, just said, "So what are these equations?"

Tony signed the bottom corner of the mirror with a flourish and stood. "Those are all the equations you need to get an A in the class, and I've even labeled all the variables. It's your job to remember your units of measurement. So all you have to do to study the test is stand in front of the mirror and study that gorgeous body of yours, and you're good."

Steve flushed. Tony hit on everyone, male and female and especially Steve (who was definitely male, thanks). It seemed to be a little more pointed this year than last, and he wasn't sure if it was because he'd stopped flailing when Tony said something or because he'd come back from a summer working with his uncle's landscaping crew with bigger shoulders and a golden tan (that had long since faded during the ridiculous Northeastern winter).

Nonetheless, it was a little flattering--no, really, more like a _lot_ flattering. He'd been short and weedy in high school and had shot up just after graduation, leaving all his college classmates thinking that he'd always been over six feet tall, and his high school classmates unknowing--and Steve wasn't really about to ask him to stop it. "Thanks," he said. "I think."

"So you can thank me by not studying anymore and entertaining me in the apparent lack of picnic." Tony capped the marker, handed it to Steve, and went over to stand by the window. "Sheesh." He cracked open the window and said, "Listen to that. Also, oh, God, they put down manure with the new trees and flowers, didn't they?"

Steve, a born and bred Brooklynite, had had no idea what manure smelled like before he moved to small-town Massachusetts, but after that--and of course last summer--he was able to shake his head no. "That's just the mulch."

"Ugh. Gross. Well, it'll all be washed out soon." Tony shut the window and drummed his fingertips on the sill. "You want to go get an early dinner? Pizza Popolis?" It was a pizza place just down the street. "My car is, unfortunately, parked right in front of it."

Steve looked at his clock--it was 4:32--and then at his desk, his laptop screen having gone black since he'd been ignoring it for a while. He thought forlornly about his DRAW 412 project that he wanted to get a head start on, and the physics stuff that he really didn't quite understand yet, and then thought about food, and his stomach rumbled. "Yeah, okay. Let me put on shoes. I'm on duty at eight, though," he said, and Tony waved a hand in dismissal.

Of course, when they were standing at the door, Steve's golf umbrella under his arm, staring at the torrential downpour and the puddles starting to collect in the uneven parts of the sidewalk, Tony looked down at his own shoes--red canvas Converse All-Stars, not exactly waterproof--and said, "Fuck this shit."

He leaned against the wall and started unlacing his shoes, and Steve said, "What?"

Tony gestured outside. "We're going to get wet out there no matter what we do, and we'll probably be covered in mud just trying to make it across the street."

"We could stay here and order a pizza," Steve offered.

"Yeah, and I could call Pepper and make her come pick us up, but that's going to take too long." Pepper was Tony's roommate and supposedly his best friend, but she took almost none of Tony's shit and Steve took a lot, to his great chagrin, so he saw Tony probably as much as she did. "So take off your shoes and socks."

Steve looked down at his own feet, in the ratty trail shoes he'd used for landscaping last summer, and said, "I think I'm okay."

Tony stuffed his socks in the pockets of his cargo shorts and shrugged. "Your funeral," he said, and pushed the door open.

The quad was nearly empty, other than a girl with an umbrella who was almost running, and Steve could understand why; they'd barely gotten to the end of the path out of the dorm before they were completely soaked, head to toe. Steve's shoes were waterlogged already, even though they supposedly were good for draining water, and there was a rivulet of water running down his spine into his jeans. Tony's hair was hanging in his face and his t-shirt was plastered to his chest, but he was grinning. "This is kinda fun," he said, and Steve had to lean in to hear him.

"I don't think they're even going to let us into the restaurant," Steve said, huffing.

Tony rolled his eyes, but apparently the coordination required to roll one's eyes and walk in a straight line eluded him, and he stepped off the path into a patch of mud, losing his balance and ending up on his ass. "Shit, fuck, damn," he said, and threw one of his shoes at a tree.

"You okay?" Steve asked.

"Yeah," Tony said. "Give me a hand up?"

Steve held his hand out, but he wasn't expecting Tony to pull back, hard. He lost his balance, went flying, and slid face-first into a mud puddle in the middle of the grass. "Oh, ew," he said, pushing his muddy hair back from his face.

Behind him, Tony was whooping with laughter. "Oh, my God, Steve, that was the best thing _ever_! I wish I had my phone with me. That shit would have gone on YouTube so fast." They'd left their phones, as well as wallets and everything else in their pockets that might get damaged by the water, in Steve's room. Steve had kept his ID and his debit card and nothing else, as had Tony.

"Did you do that on purpose?" Steve asked, standing and turning to Tony.

"No," Tony said, "but if I had, it would have been awesome."

"Yeah?" Steve said.

"Yeah."

"Well, then." He jumped forward, tackling Tony and sending both of them flying into the mud pit. "You're right, that _was_ awesome."

"Oh, my God, Rogers, you weigh a million pounds!" Tony said, pushing at him. "And besides, as much as I'd love to wrestle you in a mud pit, maybe we should slide into it a few more times first and save the wrestling for private." Tony waggled his eyebrows, and Steve shook his head, letting Tony up.

Past Tony's shoulder, Steve could see the door to the dorm open and a blond head pop out--Clint Barton, who lived on the second floor--and yell, "MUD PIT!" He ran out the door, throwing his shirt off over his head back at the door and taking a flying leap onto the grass, sliding past Steve and Tony and getting completely covered in mud.

"What the hell was that?" Tony asked.

"Pretty sure we found a replacement for the rained-out picnic," Steve said.

Ten minutes later, after about thirty other people had joined them, Steve was smearing a handful of mud on the back of Tony's head when a car drove up and someone got out of it. "Uh-oh," Steve said.

"What in hell do you kids think you're doing?"

Uh-oh, indeed. It was Nicholas Fury, the Dean of Students. He was wearing his usual unrelieved black, but it was topped with a raincoat instead of his typical leather jacket.

"Playing in the mud, sir?" ventured one student, a short guy with curly dark hair plastered to his skull; Steve was pretty sure he lived on the second floor as well but didn't know his name.

"Engaging in wanton destruction of college property!" Dean Fury corrected, punctuating his sentence with a glare that somehow took in all thirty-odd students. "Who started this mess?"

Despite Tony's hand on his arm, Steve stepped forward. "It was me, sir."

"What's your name, young man?" Dean Fury turned the weight of his glare on Steve, but he held his ground.

"Steve. Steve Rogers."

"Did it not occur to you that we might want the yard to look nice for Festival Weekend?"

"In all fairness," Tony said, stepping forward, "he kind of started it by accident, Nick."

Fury sighed. "You don't even go to this damn school, Tony Stark." He snapped his fingers. "You, Rogers, and you, Stark, come here. The rest of you twerps, go shower."

Steve mouthed _Nick?_ at Tony, who smirked and shrugged. They went to stand in front of Fury, who stared at them for a second and shook his head. "I suppose you slipped and fell in the mud?"

Steve and Tony exchanged a glance. "Well, actually, yeah, that's pretty much what happened," Tony admitted.

"Never mind," Fury said. "This weather sucks, and it's late enough in the semester that I've stopped caring what the hell you kids get up to. I'm aware that Festival Weekend is stressful, but you, Rogers, I've never met you before. I assume because you're a good kid, other than having terrible taste in friends?"

"Uh," Steve said, caught flat-footed.

Tony snorted. "He's an RA, and I had to talk him out of studying to come for early dinner with me," he said. "Of course he's a goody-two-shoes."

"Stark, shut the hell up for once," Fury said, not as unkindly as the words sounded. "And just because I know your dad, it doesn't mean you get to call me 'Nick,' ever."

"Okay, Uncle Nicky," Tony drawled, and Fury reached out to cuff him on the side of the head.

"As far as I'm concerned," Fury said, directed at Steve, "I gave you a stern warning not to ruin the landscaping and that was enough. Make sure everyone knows that I could have put this on your permanent records and put a hold on your grades until you made restitution, but I chose not to, okay?"

"Awww, turning into a softie?"

"Tony," Steve said through clenched teeth, "have some respect."

Fury shook his head. "The day he does is the day I start to worry," he said to Steve. "I'm only doing this for you, Rogers. If it had just been Stark here, I would have called up Jarvis and told him the whole thing."

Surprisingly, Tony blanched. "Oh, God, don't do that," he said. "I'll--I don't know, pay for new sod or something."

"Nah," Fury said. "It'll just be a mess tomorrow. Now get your asses out of here, and clean up the mud you track inside."

"Yes, sir," Steve said.

"Yeah, all right," Tony agreed.

Fury disappeared into his car, and Tony looked at Steve. "You think I can use your shower? I don't want to drive back to my place covered in mud."

"Yeah, no problem." Tony's car was some sort of expensive little thing, useless in the winter but a lot of fun when the sun came out. It had leather seats, which Steve couldn't imagine Tony wanting to mess up.

"Calling Jarvis, that's just dirty pool," Tony muttered as he dug his shoes out of the very center of the mud pit and followed Steve over to the front stoop of Steve's dorm.

"Who's Jarvis?" 

Tony twisted his lips. "The Alfred to my Bruce Wayne," he said, "minus the dead parents. He'll give me a very British, very disappointed look and it will be the worst thing _ever_."

Steve chuckled. "Oh, so it's the equivalent of calling my grandmother."

"Yes, that."

They stripped off what mud they could with their hands and squelched their way over to the first-floor bathroom, but it was full with a line. 

"We could go up to the second floor," Steve said, "but I doubt it'll be any different."

"Yeah," Tony said. "Grab a handful of paper towels and maybe we can wait in your room."

Steve did, as did Tony; they dropped their filthy shoes onto Steve's boot tray outside his door. Together, they shoved Steve's rug out of the way and sat on the floor. Now that they were inside and not moving around, Steve was starting to get cold, and he hadn't even gotten anything to eat. He stood and grabbed a couple of granola bars from his stash and held one out to Tony. "Want one?"

"Sure." 

Tony's teeth were chattering, and Steve debated for a moment before taking one of his spare towels and draping it over Tony's shoulders.

"You didn't have to do that," Tony said. "I'll be fine. We can probably go get a shower now. Anyone taking more than five minutes is just being an asshole."

Steve shrugged, poked his head out the door, and then shut it again. "Nope," he said. "There's still a line."

"Fuck this," Tony said, and huddled in his towel. The streaks of mud on his face made him look, despite his goatee, about twelve years old. "You got a deck of cards you're willing to sacrifice?"

"Somewhere," Steve said, and carefully dug through his desk until he found them. "Here. They cost me all of a dollar once, so be careful."

Tony laughed. "Poker? Penny a point?"

"Two-handed poker sucks," Steve said. "Egyptian rat-trap?"

"You mean Egyptian rat-screw? You're on."

A half hour later, Steve poked his head out the door again and saw the second-floor RA walking by in a bathrobe. He hadn't known that Phil had been out in the mud, but hey, cool. "Phil," he said. "Are any of the showers open?"

Phil winced. "Yeah," he said, "but the water's gone cold."

Steve blinked. "The water went cold?"

"Yeah. I've never seen this happen in my four years in this building."

"Oh, God, you're shitting me," Tony said, groaning, still on the floor.

"Stark?" Phil asked, and Steve nodded. "You don't even live here, buddy."

"I'm covered in mud, Coulson."

"Fair enough." Phil sighed. "I'd wait an hour, if you can, or just wash up in the sink."

Steve nodded. "Thanks." He closed the door and turned around, and Tony was stripping off his shirt, which was . . . unexpected. "What are you doing?" Steve asked, a little inanely.

Tony rolled his eyes at him. "Relax, your virtue is safe," he said. "I'm way too cold and muddy and disgusting to jump you right now."

"That's not what I meant," Steve said faintly, trying as hard as he could not to stare. "I just--do you want a clean t-shirt?"

"If you can spare one," Tony said. "Look, sometime when you've got free time, just come over to my place, okay? I've got a washer and dryer, and you can have free laundry."

"Okay," Steve said. That was a little different; usually if he was going to hang out with Tony it was because Tony'd invaded his dorm room. He'd been to Tony's apartment exactly once, and he'd assumed it was because Pepper kicked Tony out so she could study all the time. "I hate collecting quarters," he said to fill the silence as he turned to his dresser to pull out a t-shirt. 

"You'd think they could get on some sort of electronic card system," Tony agreed. He took the shirt from Steve and pulled it over his head, smearing a little mud around the collar. He wrapped himself in the towel again and leaned against the foot of Steve's bed.

The new shirt sounded like a great idea, now that he thought of it, and Steve turned to his dresser, pulled his own clammy, muddy shirt off, ignored Tony's strangled noise, and pulled a fresh shirt of his own on.

"Don't put a shirt on on my account," Tony said.

"I didn't," Steve protested, although yeah, he kind of had. "It's cold in here."

"It is. So, we've got an hour to burn. More cards, or do you want to watch an episode of something? I can give you my Netflix password."

Steve rolled his eyes. "I've got Clint's Netflix password." He stood, loaded the Netflix website, and clicked around. "Have you seen Black Books?"

"I have seen basically everything _on_ Netflix," Tony said, "but yeah, put that one on."

"Everything?" Steve asked, as he sat back down a foot or so from Tony, the laptop sitting on his desk chair, screen angled down. "How do you have time for that?"

Tony shrugged. "I don't sleep much."

"Guess not." He thought Tony was probably exaggerating, but whatever.

Two episodes in and Tony had scooted closer to Steve, finally leaning up against him around the beginning of the third episode. "Cold?" Steve asked, looking down at him.

"Fucking freezing," Tony said, resting ice-cold fingers on Steve's arm. Steve yelped and yanked his arm away. "You think the damn hot water tank has refilled yet?"

"It's only been about forty-five minutes. You want me to check?"

"Or you can stay here and let me steal your body heat. How are you so warm?"

Steve shrugged. "I run hot." The dry shirt had helped a lot, actually, and he was comfortable now.

"Well, I knew _that_ ," Tony murmured, a pro forma response at best. 

He pushed a little closer and Steve finally gave up, sighing, and lifted his arm, putting it around Tony's shoulders.

"Ahh," Tony said, sighing, and squirmed until he was pressed against Steve from shoulder to thigh. "Damn, that's nice."

Steve rolled his eyes and let Tony rest his muddy head on the shoulder of his relatively-clean shirt. He'd definitely be taking advantage of Tony's offer of free laundry, probably early next week. Nonetheless, it was pleasant. Tony smelled like dirt and a little bit like whatever he put in his hair, and Steve kind of liked it.

The third episode ended some twenty minutes later, and Steve disentangled himself from Tony. "I'm going to go check the showers." 

"Good call," Tony said, shifting to sit in the warm spot on the floor that Steve had left.

The bathroom was empty, so Steve went over to a shower and turned it on, standing outside the stall until it could have reasonably warmed up, and then stuck his hand in. Hot water, hot damn. He turned it off--no sense wasting it--and went back to his room. "It's hot."

"Awesome," Tony said. "Do you have another spare towel, or am I using this one?" He indicated the one on his shoulders, covered with spatters of mud and bits of caked dirt that had flaked off of his hair and skin.

Steve shook his head. "I've got more spares." He had four towels, total, gifts from his grandmother, two at a time, two Christmases in a row. He thought it might have been an accident, but he appreciated having so many towels. Throwing a red towel in Tony's direction, he kept the second blue one for himself and grabbed his shower caddy.

Two minutes later they were both standing under the hot water, and Steve groaned in pleasure. "This is so good," he said.

"Are you masturbating in there?" Tony asked. "Because that's totally fine, I'll even pretend I'm not listening, but can I grab your shampoo first?" A hand appeared just inside the shower curtain.

Steve yelped. "Oh, my God, no, I'm not masturbating," he said, and put the shampoo bottle into Tony's hand, but not before taking a handful for himself. He washed his hair, scrubbing hard to get all the dirt off of his scalp, and spent a long time standing under the spray.

"I don't suppose you have conditioner," Tony's voice came plaintively from his stall.

Steve chuckled. "Sorry, Tony. Not all of us are as invested in our hair as you."

"Ugh, don't you know anything about chemistry? Shampoo is basic, conditioner is acidic; you use them in that order to neutralize the crap that the detergent is doing to your scalp. That's why you can use vinegar as a conditioner in a pinch."

"You can?" Steve said, intrigued despite himself.

"Yes, you can." Tony's face appeared over the divider; he was obviously standing on the small bench intended to hold shower caddies, that half a dozen signs warned people _not_ to stand on. Steve yelped yet again and turned around. "Oh, come on, don't be a prude. Ain't nothing I haven't seen before. Well, you know, not necessarily yours, but generally speaking. Give me the soap."

"I'm not a prude," Steve argued, although he kind of was. He took a breath, turned around, and plucked his bar of soap off the shelf, holding it up to Tony, who took it from him and stepped down. "Give it back when you're done."

"Yo," Tony said, apparently in agreement.

Steve belatedly realized that he was in the portion of his shower when he'd need soap, and Tony hadn't returned the shampoo, so he was stuck. "Can I have the shampoo back?" he said.

"Mmm, give me a second," Tony said, "ow, ow, just got soap in my eyes. Or just grab it yourself, I don't care."

If Tony had soap in his eyes, he wouldn't be able to see Steve, so Steve peered out of his stall--no one in the shower area, unsurprisingly--and pushed Tony's curtain back slightly so he could reach in.

Tony was standing with his face turned up to the spray, rubbing at his eyes; Steve froze, hand on the shampoo bottle, and, well, looked.

Dressed, and being his usual annoying self, Tony was, you know, cute, Steve would have said. If you liked the dark-haired, dark-eyed fallen-angel type. Which Steve did, and he knew that, had known that for a while. But Tony Stark standing nude under a shower spray, hair slicked back, water running down his chest--still a little angular but starting to show what he'd look like in a few years when he filled out--well . . . 

Steve grabbed the shampoo and ducked back into his own shower, face burning bright red.

"Steve," came Tony's voice again. "Were you staring at me?"

The problem was, he had been, and basically anything he said here would be the wrong answer. So he just told the truth. "Yeah, a little."

There was a pause, and then Tony said, "A _little_? I'm standing here naked under running water and you're only staring at me a _little_?"

"Oh, my God, no gay orgies in the shower!" yelled someone from the sink area, and Steve buried his face in his hands.

"Oh, but straight ones are okay?" Tony yelled back.

"No, those aren't okay either!"

"Bisexual orgies?" Tony called.

"Only on the second floor!" The second floor had a co-ed bathroom.

"See you on the second floor!" Tony started laughing, and so did the guy by the sinks. "God, I love liberal arts colleges," Tony said.

Steve heard the door fall shut a minute or so later, and he hurriedly grabbed another handful of shampoo and used it to scrub himself down. He was rinsing himself off when he heard Tony's shower shut off and he breathed a bit of a sigh of relief.

Well, he did, until there was a tap on his curtain. "You gonna let me stare at you a little?" Tony asked.

"You already did," Steve said in protest.

"I did not," Tony said. "At best I got a partial glimpse of your chest, which, while nice, I've already seen."

"This is not a quid pro quo matter," Steve said, attempting to retain some dignity.

Tony sighed, barely audible over the stream of water. "It's true." He pushed one hand past the curtain, holding the soap. "Here." And quieter, quiet enough that Steve had to lean until he was nearly touching the curtain to hear, he added, "You know I'll lay off if you tell me to, right?"

Steve stared at Tony's hand, still holding the bar of soap. He did know that, and yet . . . "But I don't want you to," he said, right before he grabbed Tony's hand and hauled him into the stall.

Tony gasped and stumbled, one of Steve's too-big spare pair of flip-flops catching on an uneven tile. Steve caught him and they ended up pressed together, full length, Tony's forehead almost level with Steve's chin. "You okay?" Steve said, once Tony'd regained his balance.

"Yeah, oh, God, _fuck_ you're hot," Tony said, and put a hand behind Steve's head, dragging him down for a kiss. It was sloppy and wet and a little off the mark but Steve had been thinking about kissing Tony for a lot longer than he really wanted to admit and god _damn_ was it good. 

Tony's other hand came up, still holding the soap, and he laughed into the kiss. "Whoops," he said, and set it down in Steve's soap dish. He rinsed his hand off in the spray and leaned in to kiss Steve again, this time with a lot more tongue. Steve pressed forward, crowding Tony against the back tiled wall of the shower, his hands on the wall on either side of Tony's head. Tony moaned against Steve's mouth and pushed his hips forward, his erection running into Steve's, and Steve gasped, breaking the kiss to pant and grind against Tony for a moment. Tony took advantage of his distraction to reverse their position, pressing Steve against the wall, which was a little cold, and leaving himself under the showerhead. Steve spent a moment watching the water run down Tony's neck, and smiled.

"You've done this before, haven't you?" Tony murmured in his ear as he nibbled on Steve's earlobe.

"Not in a shower, no," Steve said, his hands all over every inch of Tony that he could reach.

"You gonna freak out on me?"

Steve stilled, one hand on Tony's shoulder, the other just above the swell of his ass. "I said I hadn't done this in a _shower_ , not that I hadn't done it at all."

"Oh," Tony said. "You know, if I'd have known that, I might have mrrff--"

Steve stopped him from talking with another kiss, which would be very useful in the future, but Tony insisted on talking anyway as soon as he could. "Sorry, you just give off the impression of being so virginal--"

Steve stopped him with two fingers this time. "Nope, not a virgin, but I don't jump into the nearest shower with just anyone." Not that Tony was just anyone, and God, now that Steve had jumped, there were so many things he wanted to do.

It was apparently mutual, because the minute that Steve took his fingers off of Tony's lips, Tony said, "Fuck, the things I want to do to you--"

"Yeah," Steve said. "Okay, stop talking." He dropped one hand down to cup Tony's ass and then slid it around between them.

"Seriously? You think I'm going to--Ohhhhh." Apparently a hand on his dick worked almost as well as a kiss. _Good to know,_ Steve thought. He stroked Tony from root to tip and then used Tony's momentary compliancy to turn him forty-five degrees to the right, so he was facing the divider, his backside under the flow of water. Steve blanketed Tony's body with his for a moment, kissing the back of Tony's neck, then the knob of his spine.

"What are you--" Tony started to ask, and Steve sank his teeth into Tony's shoulder.

"No talking," he said.

"Mmmf," Tony said, his hand rising to mime zipping his lips.

Steve chuckled and went back to working his way down Tony's back with hands and mouth, mapping every inch of his skin. Tony made a few strangled noises but didn't speak, even as Steve kissed the dimples on either side of his spine, just above his ass. When Steve brushed his fingertips over Tony's asshole, Tony gasped, and Steve looked up. "This okay?" he said.

Tony nodded furiously, shaking water droplets from his hair. "What were you--" he started to say, and then stopped, biting his lips.

Steve looked up at him and, as innocently as he could, licked his lips.

"Oh, my God," Tony said, his eyes closing. "I take back everything I ever even thought about you being virginal. And I'm shutting up now, really."

"Good," Steve said. He used his thumbs to spread Tony's ass, watching the water fall for a moment.

"I'm clean," Tony said, "don't worry. I mean, if you were worried. Oh, fuck, I said I was shutting up."

"Not worried," Steve said, and dove in tongue first.

He hadn't actually done this before, just had it done to him, but he was pretty smart and could figure it out. Tony did taste clean, a little like Steve's soap, which was just regular old Ivory, but he thought about Tony pressing soapy fingers back there and had to squeeze the base of his own erection for a moment.

"Mmmf," Tony said, or something like it. He was trembling under Steve's hands, but Steve was fairly certain that Tony would say if something was wrong, so he rubbed the flat of his tongue against Tony's hole again and then poked the very tip inside. That . . . tasted a little earthier, but not exactly _bad_ , so he licked his way out and then in again.

"Nnnngh, oh, God," Tony moaned, and pounded a fist on the divider.

Steve kept licking until all of the soap was gone and all he could taste was Tony, until Tony was shaking outright and making all sorts of wonderful noises, and then he stood, pressed a kiss to the back of Tony's neck, and turned around to gargle with shower water.

"You're stopping there?" Tony said, sounding wrecked and desperate, and Steve felt a moment of pride that he'd done that just by rimming him. 

"Just for the moment," he said.

Tony gave Steve a once-over, ending below his waist, and said, "Well, or I could--"

The door to the bathroom opened with a bang, and loud footsteps came over to the shower side. "Gentlemen," said Phil, "two feet per shower stall, please." His shoes clicked loudly on the floor as he left, and he slammed the door shut behind him.

"Fuck," Tony said, and started laughing.

Steve felt his face turn hot and he squeezed his eyes shut, reaching behind him to turn the shower off. "Well, that was embarrassing."

"Eh," Tony said. "It's nowhere near the worst thing I've been caught doing."

Steve was startled into a laugh, and he pushed his wet hair out of his face before reaching out to the hook for his towel, which wasn't there. Well. Maybe it fell. He opened the curtain just enough to see out and nope, no towel. Tony's was gone, too, as well as the muddy piles of clothing they'd each left in the corner of the raised shower area. "Uh-oh," he said.

"What?" Tony asked, and opened the shower curtain up enough that he could see out as well.

"Our stuff's gone," Steve said.

"Well," Tony said cheerfully, "looks like your residents are going to get quite a show."

Steve groaned.

Some kind soul had left a copy of the school paper, which was, for the record, printed on somewhat smaller paper than the New York Times, over by the sinks, and without thinking too hard what that paper had been used for, Steve used a couple of pages to hold in front of and behind himself as he darted down the hall to his room. A door opened and then shut very quickly as he ran, but Steve didn't even turn his head. He got to his room, hoping that Tony would stay put and wait for him and knowing that he had to be fast if he wanted him to. Throwing on pajama pants and a t-shirt, he grabbed his bathrobe for Tony, walking a little more sedately back to the bathroom.

Tony was actually still in the shower stall when Steve got back and handed him the bathrobe. "About time, dude," he said, shrugging into the robe and belting it loosely. "Anyone see you?"

"I don't know," Steve gritted out, "and I don't want to find out."

"Fair enough," Tony said. "Is the mood totally broken?"

He sounded wistful, and Steve had to smile. "Maybe not," he said. "Let me brush my teeth." He did, and used mouthwash, to boot, while Tony sat on the counter--also directly forbidden by a sign on the mirror--and watched.

They got back to Steve's room a minute or so later, and Steve took a moment to put his shower caddy where it belonged. He checked the time; it wasn't quite seven, so he had another hour before he had to be on duty.

Well. If he only had an hour, he knew how he wanted to spend it. He went to the door and locked it, and then reached over and grabbed the tie of his bathrobe, tugging until Tony came over. "Mood broken for you?" he asked.

"Nope." Tony stretched up to kiss Steve. 

It started out a little more slowly and less urgently, but got there pretty fast. Steve got the robe undone and his hands under it quickly, Tony's skin still warm and damp under his palms. Tony, for his part, shrugged out of the robe and let it fall to the ground as he went for the drawstring on Steve's pajama pants. "Please tell me you have condoms and lube," Tony said as Steve pushed him backwards and he hit the closet door. "Oh, wait, shit--there go the equations." He pushed forward, just enough that he wasn't on the mirror anymore, and took Steve's mouth again.

"You know what, I don't care," Steve said, a long minute later.

"You're not the one with general relativity scrawled on his ass," Tony said. "Or did you mean about the condoms and lube? Because I actually care fairly strongly about those. After having your tongue in my ass, I was hoping for something a little more substantial."

Steve chuckled. "I meant about the equations. And of course I have condoms and lube. I'm an RA."

"I _love_ liberal arts schools," Tony said fervently.

Steve dug through his closet until he found the bag with condoms and lube packets and grabbed a handful of each before putting the rest back. While he'd been occupied, Tony had absconded with Steve's lone clean towel--at least, until someone returned his towels, and even then, he'd probably still launder them--and spread it on Steve's bed, pushing the sheets and blanket down to the foot. 

Steve set the condoms and lube on the file cabinet he used as a bedside table and watched Tony climb into the bed, unselfconsciously nude. When he made to join him, though, Tony said, "Ah, ah, ah. Hold up. You're wearing way too much clothing."

Steve widened his eyes in his best _who, me?_ innocent look, and Tony laughed. "What makes you think I'm ever falling for that again? Strip, you secret stud, you."

Steve rolled his eyes and pulled his shirt off over his head in a smooth motion, flexing a little as he lowered his arms. He did not miss the way that Tony's eyes widened, although he thought it was a little weird as they'd just been naked together a few minutes before. Oh well. He pushed the pajama pants off his hips and let them fall to the floor, stepping out of them and kicking them to the side. "Am I allowed in my own bed yet?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," Tony said, and patted the mattress next to him.

It wasn't a very big bed, just a standard college-sized extra-long twin, so it was good that Tony was a little on the short side and not nearly as broad-shouldered as Steve was, or they wouldn't have both fit. As it was, it really only worked because the minute Steve was on the bed, Tony was all over him, hands and tongues and legs tangling together.

Steve groaned as Tony found a particularly sensitive spot on his neck, and then it was Tony's turn to moan as Steve wrestled him to the mattress and pinned him down while circling his nipples with the tip of his tongue. "Oh, God, yes," Tony said, and then: "Did you still want me not to talk?"

"No, you can talk," Steve said, "seeing as how I can't manage to shut you up while my mouth is otherwise occupied. Do you want to use a condom for a blow job?"

Tony's eyes rolled back in his head when Steve said 'blow job,' but he answered anyway. "You already had your tongue in my ass without a dental dam and now you're asking about condoms for something considerably more sanitary?"

"True," Steve said, and yeah, that had been against all of his RA training in safer-sex options but they'd been in the shower and he'd been willing to accept the consequences, so. "And if you can think about all that, I'm not doing my job." He pressed open-mouth kisses along Tony's ribs, following as he squirmed away, and sucked a mark right over the crest of Tony's hip before pushing his hands up Tony's quads a couple of times, and then licking away a bead of pre-come from the tip of his dick.

"Don't tease," Tony whimpered.

"You don't want me to tease you?" Steve asked, mock-innocently again. He touched his lips to the thin skin just inside Tony's hip, and Tony groaned.

"I'm not going to survive this," he said, closing his eyes and clutching for purchase on the bed. He found the edges of the towel and curled his fingers around them. Steve watched his fingers flex for a moment and then bent his head and swallowed as much of Tony's dick down as he could.

Which wasn't all _that_ much; he'd done this before but not often, and it wasn't exactly rocket science. Also, it wasn't for nothing that he'd wound Tony up that much. There was no way he'd last very long, so Steve wrapped one hand around the base and sucked on the top couple of inches and just continued until Tony stopped saying "Oh, fuck" and started saying, "Gonna come, gonna come, gonna come."

At that point Steve backed off and worked his hand a little faster, watching Tony's face as he winced and bit his lip and cried out and finally came, back arched, thick stripes messily painting his own chest and Steve's hand.

Steve crawled up the bed and curled around Tony's side, watching his chest rise and fall as he panted. He dragged one fingertip through the come cooling on Tony's chest and popped it in his mouth, sucking, just to see the effect.

Tony groaned. "Don't do that," he said. "Not yet. I can get it up again pretty fast but not instantaneously."

Steve chuckled and kissed Tony's temple.

"No, but seriously, though, I've been hanging around you pretty regularly for the last, what, year and a half, right, and unless you're having one-night stands when I'm not looking--where did you learn how to do that?"

"Do you really want me to talk about exes in bed with you?" Steve asked dubiously.

"I guess not," Tony conceded. "Ex-boyfriends, plural?"

"No," Steve said. "Exes, plural: an ex-girlfriend and an ex-boyfriend."

"Oh," Tony said. He looked up at the ceiling and sighed. "Why didn't I go to a liberal arts college?"

Steve poked him in the arm lightly. "I've got some residents who are very devout Catholics."

"And others who are also on their knees, yelling, 'Oh, God' a lot?" Tony smirked, and Steve prodded him again for his irreverence.

"Be nice."

"I'm always nice," Tony protested, but Steve shut him up in his new favorite way.

Several minutes of lazy kissing later, Tony reached out and fumbled at the bedstand until he came up with a couple packets of lube, which he dropped on his own chest, next to Steve's hand.

"Is that a hint?" Steve asked.

"No, it's a request," Tony said. "A very strong one. Almost a demand."

"Almost a demand?" Steve cocked an eyebrow, picking up one of the packets and ripping it open.

"Becoming more and more demand-like by the moment," Tony said, his eyes on Steve's fingers as he coated them in lube.

"Yeah?" Steve asked, moving his hand slowly down between Tony's legs.

"Yeah," Tony said, a note very close to a whine in his voice. He spread his legs a little more and wriggled, and Steve obliged him by circling a slippery fingertip around for a moment before pushing in gently.

He watched Tony's face for cues--when he should push in and when he should stop, when he could add a second finger, when he needed to get more lube--and Tony provided nods and headshakes as necessary. By the time Steve had three fingers inside him and had brushed over his prostate once or twice--okay, more than that--Tony was squirming and whimpering and actually starting to get hard again, so Steve had to believe he was liking it.

"How--how do you want this?" Tony asked, between moans.

"I'd like to watch you," Steve said, twisting his fingers inside Tony and eliciting another wonderful noise, "but whatever's easiest for you."

"I could ride you--oh, God, stop for a moment if you want me to answer," Tony whined, huffing air out through his nose, and Steve stilled his fingers. "But, you know, fuck that, I'm too lazy right now. How about you do all the work this time and next time we'll try something more interesting than missionary position?"

Steve's brain shorted out at the words 'next time' and he froze.

"I mean, you've put up with me for this long," Tony said, and the bravado rang a little false. "I figure my personality isn't going to put you off for at least a few more hook-ups." He held himself very still as well.

"Yeah," Steve said. "At least a few more." He hadn't thought about anything else past today but now that Tony mentioned it, he really, really wanted to do this again. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow _morning_.

Tony exhaled, long and a little jerky. "Yeah, okay," he said. "So, missionary. You gonna get on that?"

"Damn right I'm gonna get on that," Steve said with a grin. He crooked his fingers one last time, making Tony gasp, before he withdrew and held his hand out for a condom.

Tony fumbled at the nightstand again and threw the first one he found at Steve. "Oh, wait, not that one," he said, taking it back and throwing it on the floor. He leaned over and picked through the pile. "Here, this kind."

"Yeah," Steve said, tearing the package carefully, "I don't think we need a strawberry-flavored condom for this."

Tony chuckled, a little wheezily, and said, "Also, MIT only gives away the plain old lubricated kind, not even ribbed for my pleasure. Liberal arts schools, dude."

Steve rolled the condom onto himself and squeezed the last bit of lube out of the packet, slicking himself up a little more. "Sexual health is a very important concept," he said, tossing the lube packet and the condom wrapper aside. "You ready?"

"I was born ready," Tony said, spreading his legs a little more and grabbing his knees. 

Steve groaned, partly because of the stupid quote, but mostly because _fuck_ , Tony was hot. He climbed over between Tony's legs and leaned over to kiss him, slow and sweet and just barely under control.

"Mmf, yeah," Tony groaned, reaching up and pushing Steve's hair, still damp, back from his forehead. "C'mon, in me." He nudged Steve's side with his knee.

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "Yeah." He leaned back, reached down, lined himself up, and pressed in, just a bit.

Oh, God, it was hot and tight, even just that much, and Tony was groaning, and there was no way that he could make this last anywhere near as long as he wanted to (which was basically forever, anyway) so he bit his lip, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe.

"Please, sir, can I have some more?" Tony said in a terrible British accent, and Steve's eyes flew open. He laughed, and nudged forward a little bit, making Tony gasp. Shutting him up was so much fun.

It took a couple minutes to push all the way in, and by then, a trickle of sweat was running down Steve's face, dripping onto Tony. "You okay?" he asked, really, really hoping he was, because more than anything, Steve wanted to move. But Tony's face was unreadable and he'd lost his erection, which was probably an answer in and of itself.

"I'm great, I really am," Tony assured him, taking short breaths through his nose. "You're not, you know, massively huge and splitting me like a log or anything. Log. Ha, ha."

"I can wait," Steve said. "Or--"

"No, no, don't pull out," Tony said quickly, and he leaned his head back against the pillow, taking a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. "Okay," he said. "I think I'm good now."

"Think?"

"I'm sure. Actually, it'll get better once you start moving, so go."

Steve didn't really think that was true, but he eased out a little bit and then back in, and Tony's face smoothed out somewhat, so it might be. He made the same, careful movement, and Tony nodded. "Keep going."

Steve did, still slowly for a few more thrusts, until apparently he'd hit the right angle, because Tony arched his back and said, "Oh, God, right _there_ , yes, that!"

"Okay," Steve breathed, "okay, yeah." He leaned forward a little and started thrusting in earnest, trying to hit the same angle every time.

He apparently did more often than not, because Tony was getting hard again, writhing on the bed under him. "Oh, God, how long can you keep that up?" Tony asked between gasps.

"Not . . . long," Steve said, gritting his teeth and trying to think about cafeteria food, the gym locker room, his statistics class, anything but Tony's face and Tony's body and how hot and tight and slick he was.

"Okay okay okay," Tony said, "just a little longer, really--" He slid a hand down between them, fingers brushing against Steve's abdomen, and wrapped his hand around his own erection, moving in short, desperate jerks. "Yeah, oh, God, please."

Steve groaned again. How was he supposed to resist? He dug his fingertips into the towel and kept going, the sound of skin against skin and the sounds Tony was making under him turning into white noise in his ears as he climbed and climbed and got closer and closer, but not quite there, not yet, he couldn't, not until Tony--

"Augh, _fuck_!" Tony cursed, arching again, a hot spill between them, and Steve lost it, lost all sense of time and motion and reality, all white and heat and the blood roaring in his ears.

He came back draped over Tony's chest, panting, Tony's hand running up and down his back. "You back with me yet?" Tony asked.

Steve felt his words as much as he heard them, rumbling in his chest, and smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, magnificent, really. Two mind-blowing orgasms in under an hour, hot damn," Tony said, "but I think I'd be a little happier without the two-hundred-pound weight on my chest. You still weigh a ton, dude."

"I don't think I've hit two hundred yet," Steve said, but he reached down, grabbed the edge of the condom, and withdrew.

"Ugh," Tony said, wincing. "That's always pleasant." When Steve got off the bed, walking over to his trash-can on wobbly legs, he rolled to his feet as well, pulled on Steve's bathrobe again, and said, "I'll be right back, and then we can do something horrible like cuddle. You seem like the cuddling kind."

Steve decided not to mention who had been leaning on whom earlier while they'd been watching Netflix, because yeah, he actually was the cuddling kind. "Okay," he said, and then glanced over at his clock. "Shit."

"Shit, what?" Tony asked, hand on the doorknob.

"I'm on duty in ten minutes and my room smells like--like a--"

"Whorehouse?" Tony said, grinning. "Damn, Rogers, you kicking me out already? That's like, a record or something."

"No, oh, hell, you've been here when I'm on duty before," Steve said, hitting his forehead with the heel of his hand. "You can stay; we just can't be, well--"

"Post-coital?"

"Oh, my God, shut _up_ ," Steve said.

"Make me," Tony said.

Steve took two steps to cross over to Tony, seized his face, and kissed him as fiercely and deeply as he could. "Yeah," Steve said a moment later. "I want to cuddle, and then go in for round 2 and maybe round 3, but I have a job. So if you want, we can stay, and watch a couple of movies with the door propped open, and maybe some kids with problems will stop by and maybe they won't. And when the bell strikes at midnight and it's someone else's turn, I'd like to lock the door again and take you _apart_. But I know you have things to do, too, so it's up to you."

Tony blinked up at him for a second and licked his lips before saying, "My dissertation project's busy compiling itself; that's going to take another day or two. So, uh, I guess I can stay, if you let me borrow some clothing. And maybe order a pizza?"

Steve let a slow smile spread across his face. "Yeah, I can do that."

**Author's Note:**

> First: Waverly College is me picking up Waverly University from NCIS, making it a liberal-arts college, and throwing it outside of Boston. No reference intended to Waverly, IA.
> 
> Second: I first became aware of the slightly-derogatory moniker "Physics for Poets" from Pamela Dean's magnificent _Tam Lin_ , but it's not actually the same class (hers has a lab, mine does not). 
> 
> Third: This is the part where I confess that the story actually happened. Well, sort of. Not the parts that you wanted to happen. But the mud pit just before the weekend of the major college festival and then the water running out in the dorm, and the couple getting caught in the shower and the walk of shame in a newspaper--those happened. Not at the same time or to the same people (and I was not involved in either although I did actually see the mud-pit happening), but yeah. If you recognize any of these events, hi. We may have gone to school together!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Best Ways to Shut Up Tony Stark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5594575) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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